When Elon Musk donned a cheesehead and started throwing money at voters in Wisconsin, it was a test. Would those vaunted blue-collar Midwest values hold or were they for sale to the highest bidder, a guy who brought us Big Balls, DOGE and Cybertrucks with their side panels falling off as they sped along the country’s highways.
It wasn’t even close. Musk’s more than $20 million couldn’t buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for conservative candidate Judge Brad Schimel, who has stood prominently in support of maintaining a 19th century law banning abortion even in cases of incest and rape.
Judge Susan Crawford, who has represented Planned Parenthood, teachers’ unions and worked in the state’s Department of Natural Resources among other things, won the race decisively by something like 9 points.
The contrast between the candidates was stark and so was the outcome of the election. The biggest loser in this spectacle unquestionably was Musk, who totally had it coming.
Good for Wisconsin.
And for Coloradans who will be electing a new governor and a raft of state officials in 2026, there’s a lesson here: values matter. They are kryptonite for a shameless huckster whose only guiding principles are dishonesty, cruelty and greed.
But winning elections when democracy is being suffocated by too much money will require more than just appealing to voters’ better nature. It’s going to require candidates to take a hard look at the seemingly intractable problems we are facing. It will mean offering the kind of leadership required to win public support and ultimately make life better.
The only effective response to Musk’s raging anti-government movement is a government that works.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro have led the movement among Democrats to focus on producing results. Their mantra is to get, um, stuff done.
Whitmer famously campaigned on a message to “fix the damn roads” and then made real progress in that effort despite the failure of a measure to increase the gas tax to pay for the work that is needed.
Shapiro’s political stature rose when he managed to get a collapsed interstate highway bridge reopened in an astonishing 12 days.
They proved it’s not impossible to run a government that gets stuff done.
After a couple of decades of Democratic leadership in Colorado, the jury is still out on whether their leadership has been effective.
The state remains mired in a rut of nagging problems that seem to defy solution. Persistent unaffordable housing, clogged highways, underutilized transit systems and underfunded schools are just a small sample.
The impact is undeniable.
The state’s economy is no longer the behemoth that brought rousing population growth and tax revenues for more than 10 years. A recent report found zero job growth in the state from February 2024 to 2025 and more than a third of the state’s cities have lost population in the past few years.
At 4.7%, the unemployment rate is higher than the national average, and tariffs and the cancellation of federal grants haven’t yet begun to register in measures of economic output.
Our next leaders will face these problems along with the inevitable need to respond to natural disasters, public health threats and all manner of unforeseen emergencies with meager support from Washington.
The federal government as we know it no longer exists. We’re on our own.
Whoever ends up running for governor next year will have to find ways to maintain excellence in the scientific community in the state despite threats of devastating cuts in federal funding. They will have to figure out how to operate in a state with 24 million acres of federal land with little federal stewardship and often conflicting views on how it should be exploited.
Future leaders will have to confront rising costs for child care, homeowners’ insurance and health care in a political environment becoming more Darwinian by the minute. And they will have to take courageous stands to protect the rights and freedoms we cherish and build coalitions across state and ideological lines to preserve democracy.
The voters in Wisconsin were insulted and disrespected by Musk. He handed out million-dollar checks as if the election was not about what was good for the state, but a simple transaction of buying votes from people too simple to make an informed decision.
They are not simple, and they were not for sale.
It’s a lesson for everyone running for office. Even in an environment awash with money from arrogant billionaires, you can’t buy voter support. You have to earn it.
Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.
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